The power of RBH engine can be harnessed through a sophisticated API simplifying the integration to few moving parts. Many tech savvy firms like High Frequency Traders, automated Market Makers, etc. have enough talent and resources to aggregate positions in real time with market data. A WCF call to RBH Direct with aggregated positions would trigger RBH report creation and distribution. This solution provides best of both worlds by eliminating the charges/tech support on FIX drops, market data, and OCC file charges. There is no need to spend on maintenance as the daily loading of OCC PL files, SPAN, ETF composition files will be taken care by MiddleLink. Further, as this is an on-demand call, timing can be fully controlled by RBH client with customized distributions of report creation timing like RBH report for every one minute for the 20 minutes around the open/close of trading day and every three minutes for the rest of the...

Institutional options trading and settlement is a very flexible business process unique to US listed options market. The cost for this flexibility is the added complexity in the billing process. Many institutional clientsâ€™ are multi primed, execute through a non-clearing member who transfers the transaction to the prime of their choice involving multiple hops with a drop in fidelity of billing details. Having a manual process to track the billing through a spread sheet in comparison to book keeping in a separate system further complicates it, creating challenges for the operations/accounting teams to keep both data in sync. Executing Brokers typically write-off between 150 to 500 basis points as slippage. CMTA Direct is a billing platform to streamline CMTA billing process realizing efficiencies with reduced slippage, accelerated receivables and resource cost in three different ways depending on the payer. 1. Excelling with spread sheet Broker can streamline their billing process with CMTA Direct. Starting with an automatic upload of daily execution files into the system, payee can run the invoice as required typically once every month. Invoice can be one per client across Primes if they are directly paying or one invoice per prime for all its clients or even one invoice per prime per client, if that is the preference of the Prime. With an interactive spreadsheet update, any disputes/resolutions and comments will be preserved in the system with tracking of payments made. Any unpaid invoice gets aged. Executing Broker can analyze and speed up the process with interactive reports. 2. Payer portal Trading firms like to be on top of the game resolving any issues as...

Imagine a race car driver driving a race car at high speeds with a broken speedometer. Nearly improbable in todayâ€™s world, but this is the day-to-day scenario at many of the Prop Trading Firms and Hedge Funds. Executions do happen at high frequency, but the actual accounting of various costs involved with a trade, especially profit/loss split between various parties within a trading firm are done in manual way, typically using a spreadsheet. They are very cumbersome, tough to track all the costs, there is generally a key man dependency when something goes wrong and often lead to discrepancies between trader and trading firm. Many small to medium size trading firms typically spend anywhere from 1 to 3 months calculating their payout numbers. With each additional trader onboarding, the workloads get heavier for the accounting department. There are so many costs associated at various levels like per transaction charge including commission, CMTA charges for options, margin interest, short stock interest/rebate, etc., account level charges like profit sharing deals, net cap charges, etc., trader level charges like health insurance, seat charges, market data entitlement charges (aka below line expenses), etc. For a firm setup in a hierarchical structure, which is the typical setup in many prop trading firms (like Trader, Trading Desk, Division, etc.) how does profit and loss flow from one level to another? To add to the complexity, some charges might be eaten up at one level or one can add a wig (like few basis points for margin interest on top of the clearing firm rate). These complexities begin to snowball making it tough/time consuming to deliver...

Trading firms typically prime with more than one Prime Broker for various reasons. The reasons may be access to different markets stock loan capabilities, enhanced leverage, etc. as decided mainly by the factors of interest to front office/trading desk. When assimilating the raw data of a single Prime is tough by itself, what do you think your level of success will be consolidating data across multiple primes? With different formats, accounting methods and ever changing data structures, this front office decision could become a nightmare for the middle office/operations team. The bottleneck in operations would easily cascade down to front office and management in analyzing the data to make business decisions, let alone dealing with day to day operational issues. Utilizing their multi-decade experience in dealing with data output from Prime Brokers, the MiddleLink team has pioneered a sophisticated product called Prime Plus. Prime Plus understands data from a Prime in its native format and translates into Prime Plus Book. Each data point like cash balance, transaction, positions, etc. are converted into Prime Plus format by applying nuances specific to each prime. MiddleLink team keeps on top with any changes that occur in the format, making the transition for our clients seamless and transparent. With data from multiple primes in one single format, Prime Plus provides a solid foundation for our clients to play with data starting from reconciliation to advanced profitability analytics. As they say in Wall Street, the possibilities are wide...